S. E. Hudgens Guadalupe The virgin, she is everywhere. En todas partes. Tiled into the corner store wall, painted on houses along Chicon, hung around necks and between breasts of the pious. Her mâchéd figure lurks in the live oak groves that line the río; she bows to cursing lovers and the needles that line the curbs. Shrouded in azul de bebé, the virgin watches with a face impassive as plastic. She has learned to expect little. Her heart flares. I know she dreams of escape, of shattered tile and crumbling brick, of God taking her right there on the sidewalk in front of all the pimps. The ladies de la noche will mistake her for one of their own, offer her a cigarette as she rises from the rubble. She’ll finally feel what Magdalene felt—like a base human being, like una criminal, whole. The night will tattoo her onto its belly. What will the men say as, for once, she undresses con las estrellas?
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S. E. Hudgens
SIXFOLD POETRY SUMMER 2013